American Airlines is undoing a negative policy change that it implemented last year, as part of its effort to become more customer friendly.
American improves airport standby policy
As of July 1, 2025, American has introduced same-day standby for all passengers, regardless of their AAdvantage membership. With this, all customers can list themselves for standby on a domestic flight with an agent, up to 45 minutes prior to departure.
As American describes this decision, “we are continuously looking for ways to enhance the travel journey for our customers and this update gives all customers the convenience of a flexible itinerary, space permitting.”
This update represents the reversal of a policy that was implemented in March 2024, where we saw a few new restrictions added:
- Standby was limited to AAdvantage members, meaning non-members couldn’t standby for other flights
- Standby requests were limited to aa.com and the American app, so airport agents could no longer place passengers on standby; the exception was for Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and Concierge Key members
- Standby requests needed to be made at least 45 minutes before departure, except for Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and Concierge Key members, who could request it up to 15 minutes before departure
This is a minor but positive policy change
This update on American’s part is sensible. It undoes a policy change implemented last year, which felt like it was punitive just for the sake of being punitive. I think that March 2024 policy change so perfectly summed up the state of American’s approach to customers at the time, as part of Vasu Raja’s El Paso World Domination strategy.
American created a policy to prevent agents from helping customers, for seemingly no good reason at all, other than “policy.” Why add a policy that makes it harder for customers to get help? For that matter, the issue was often that American’s tech wouldn’t work correctly, so even if you got an incorrect error message, an agent still couldn’t help.
We know that American has been trying to improve in recent months. The airline is greatly lagging Delta and United when it comes to financials, and we’re definitely seeing a bit of a vibe shift at the moment.
American appointed Heather Garboden as Chief Customer Officer, and we’ve seen the airline announce it wants to become more premium and customer focused. We’ve started to see some positive changes, and many of those have simply been reversals of previously dumb policies.
It’s really sad how much catching up American has to do. Rather than trying to catch up with Delta and United, American is still busy catching up to its former self. But hey, I’m happy to see these changes!
Bottom line
As of today, American has restored same day standby for all passengers at the gate. All travelers on domestic flights can now add themselves to the standby list at least 45 minutes before departure, and agents are allowed to help with this. This is a reversal of an early 2024 policy change, and I think customers will appreciate this.
What do you make of this American policy change?
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